Ballistics match leads to arrest in Fairfield police officer shooting

When Union Township police picked up a Nutley man for allegedly firing random shots outside a Route 22 liquor store last month, they seized his handgun and sent it to a ballistics lab.

The gun — a Ruger 9 mm — landed on a long list of weapons awaiting routine testing. For nearly four weeks, it sat in a cardboard box in a file cabinet at Union County Police Headquarters in Westfield as the lab worked through the backlog of low-profile cases.

Sarah Rice/For The Star-LedgerFairfield Police Chief Charles Voelker at Saturday's press conference following the arrest of Preye Roberts, who was charged with shooting off-duty Fairfield Police Officer Gerald Veneziano on Jan. 30. Essex County Acting Prosecutor Robert Laurino is at right.
But when police finally got around to testing the firearm Thursday, they quickly realized the Ruger was no ordinary gun. A nationwide ballistics database identified it as the weapon used in the high-profile January shooting of a Fairfield police officer.

“It drew the needle out of a haystack,” said Sgt. Michael Sandford, a member of the Union County ballistics team.

The shooting, which left Veneziano with gun shot wounds to the head, chest and leg, was investigated for weeks by a team of local and state law enforcement officials. It was the ballistics testing of the gun in the unrelated Union Township shooting that finally helped break the case, investigators said.

“Projectiles and shell casings are almost as significant as fingerprints,” said State Police Sgt. Jeff Kronenfeld, one of the investigators on the case.

Police used the Integrated Ballistics Identification System, a computer database shared by law enforcement officers around the country, to link the gun in the Union case to the shell casings found where Veneziano was shot.

FURTHER EVIDENCE
Veneziano, of Belleville, remains in stable condition at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in West Orange, recovering from his injuries. On Friday night, investigators went to the facility to show photos of Roberts to Veneziano, who identified him as the man who shot him in January, police said.

Law enforcement officials said Roberts and Veneziano did not know each other before the alleged shooting.

Preye L. Roberts was arrested in connection with the shooting of a Fairfield officer.
Prosecutors said investigators also linked Roberts to the Fairfield case because he was allegedly renting a black Dodge Caliber with a “W” in the license plate at the time of the shooting. Veneziano had previously told police his assailant was driving a black SUV with a “W” in the license plate.

Roberts was charged with attempted murder, unlawful possession of a weapon and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, prosecutors said. If convicted, he could face up to 30 years in prison.

Roberts is being held at the Union County Jail in Elizabeth, police said. Bail was set at $100,000 for the Route 22 shooting and an additional $500,000 for the Fairfield shooting.

Neighbors in Nutley yesterday described Roberts as a mature young man from a good family. He lives with his parents and two sisters, neighbors said.

“Ten years ago when we moved into the neighborhood, he was the first one in the family to introduce himself,” said Mike Treshock, a neighbor.

No one answered the door yesterday at either Roberts’ or Veneziano’s houses, which are about 1.5 miles apart on similar tree-lined streets in middle class neighborhoods in Nutley and Belleville.

Investigators said it remains unclear what sparked the alleged Jan. 30 road rage incident between Roberts and Veneziano.

Acting Essex County Prosecutor Robert Laurino said investigators have yet to get a full account of the road rage incident from Veneziano, whose jaw remains wired shut as he recovers in the rehabilitation institute.

“We’re going to debrief him, hopefully, in the next few weeks,” Laurino said. “It all depends on the medical team.”

Calls to Veneziano’s attorney were not returned yesterday.

ROAD RAGE INCIDENT
Immediately after the shooting, Veneziano told investigators he was driving to work in his silver Volkswagen Passat when a black SUV began following him from Clifton into Fairfield.

The two cars eventually pulled into a parking lot a few blocks from Fairfield police headquarters, where Veneziano told investigators he identified himself as a police officer and confronted the occupant of the other car.

Veneziano — who was not in uniform and not wearing a bullet proof vest — was shot six times. He returned fire, shooting 13 rounds from his service weapon before collapsing, police said.

Two weeks later, Union Township police responded to a report of someone firing shots outside Aarti’s World Discount Liquors on Route 22 in Union Township. The store’s owners said the gunman shot the store’s video surveillance camera and a 1997 black Cadillac with a “for sale” sign. A local police officer had asked to leave the car in the parking lot a few days before, the store’s owners said.

Officers found the Ruger 9 mm gun in his jacket pocket, Zieser said. The weapon was fully loaded with eight rounds, including one ready to fire in the chamber, according to police. Roberts also was carrying 19 loose bullets in another pocket. Officers recovered seven spent shell casings at the scene.

ANALYSIS OF CASINGS
Sandford, a Union County police officer who worked on the case, said the ballistics team performed an “operability study” on the gun that included firing test shots into a water tank. They used the test shots and the shell casings from the scene to ensure that only one gun was used in the Union Township shooting.

Sandford said the team also analyzed the grooves inside the barrel of the 9 mm and the distinctive pattern it left on the bullets. All of the evidence eventually linked the gun to the shell casings in the Fairfield case through the Integrated Ballistic Identification System, which tracks digital images of “bullet fingerprints” used in crimes around the country.

“The IBIS system worked exactly how it was supposed to work,” Sandford said. “They connected the dots.”